The Four Rivers Conference band played at New Haven High School and at Union High School on Tuesday, January 23th, which was rescheduled from its original date of January 16th. The Conference band is made up of selected students from the eight Four Rivers schools in our conference: New Haven, Hermann, Union, Sullivan, Owensville, Pacific, St. James, and St. Clair.

The students who wanted to be a part of the Conference band attended the audition on Wednesday, January 10th, with hopes of scoring high enough to get in. The qualifying students from New Haven were Devin Buchheit, Chloe Lueckenhoff, and Keagan Huff.

“I am very excited and proud to have the representatives that we do from our band,” said Mrs. Mandy Koch, New Haven band director. “And although some of the students were not selected to perform with the band, many of them still scored very competitively within their sections.”

Saturday, January 13th, the students that made it into the Conference band had a rehearsal day to prepare for the concerts. The Conference band members had morning and afternoon rehearsals that day.

“It was fun, exciting, and overwhelming at the same time,” exclaimed Devin Buchheit. “It was a fun experience, and I think anyone in band should try it! It’s very long, full of bad jokes, but hey, it’s totally worth it.”

The director at the concert was Chuck Appelton and the guest conductor was Gene Hunt (who started the Conference Band 50 years ago). The songs played at the concert were “Incantations,” “Make a Joyful Noise” (this was the song that was written by Derek Limback, the director at St. James, to commemorate the 50th year of the Conference Band), “The Trombone King” (conducted by the guest conductor, Gene Hunt), “On a Hymnsong of Philip Bliss,” “Where the Black Hawk Soars,” and “Fugue on Yankee Doodle.”

“The concert was great and I really hope everyone enjoyed it,” said Chloe Lueckenhoff.

“It increased my confidence,” said Devin Buchheit. “I think that anybody could do it as long as they put in the effort.”